Animorphic
by NixKat
Summary: Naruto's loyalties are tested when he gets tangled up in the plots of a long lived cousin and her wonderful creations.
1. Chapter 1: Observation

A clear film swiped across beady glass eyes. The puppet bounced along a tree branch, occasionally fluttering its flexible leather and metal wings. If examined close up by a bird watcher, its use would be easily found out. Fortunately it was programmed with a flight distance much like the small song bird it was pretending to be, fleeing from any threat that got within a certain range. It chirped, preened its fake feathers, and pecked the ground as it observed the subject K9-3 train in the backwoods of the Hidden Leaf ninja village.

Eventually the boy grew tired of his morning training and left the forest. The not-songbird followed at a distance to the edge of the woods. It went no further, constricted by its programing to stay in an area where it would could camouflage. At the end of its range it sent a short electronic signal to its closest village bound comrade to carry on its watch. Another puppet, much better disguised than it picked up the switch off signal and followed the electronic 'ping' of K9-3's locator chip. A fake pidgeon, much more convincingly designed since the real thing tended to get close to humans, trailed after the child nonchalantly.

Several miles away in an underground bunker Eoptis began her shift watching the surveillance videos of subject K9-3. Four eyes watched a set of monitors providing feed from hidden cameras all across the Leaf village and a couple dozen mecha birds in and around the area. She was excited to see what the subject was up to today, since the boy had become a ninja his time was preoccupied with missions all over the village. As unprofessional as it was Eoptis hoped that K9-3 was having a good day, it was hard to watch someone for years and not get attached.

Today the boy's team had caught the Fire Daimyo's cat, Tora, for the eighth time since they'd started doing missions. Someone really oughta send the daimyo's mate an informational pamphlet on domestic feline care because she was really bad at it if the poor thing felt the need to flee so often. The tap of a key switched the view on the monitors from the eyes of fake birds to the lenzes of hidden cameras in the mission room of the Hokage's building. Tapping a different key turned up the speakers sitting on both sides of her station. Eoptis's eyes curved into a smile at K9-3 tantrum over having to do unglamorous grunt work. When the mistress finally decided to recruit the child, that sort of attitude would have to be trained out of him.

Her long lavender ears pricked forward at the words "C-ranked mission". She scrambled to her hooves and stared intently at the humans on screen. Was it finally happening? Was the Leaf jinchuuriki finally being allowed to leave the village?!

Yes?

Yessss!

Eoptis practically pranced in place as the details of the mission were given to K9-3's team. She committed them to memory: Wave country, bridge builder, escort and bodyguard. With the flat of her tail blade she pressed the big red button reserved for this very occasion. A red light filled the bunker and the sounds of her teammates rushing to the surveillance room. First to reach her location was Boar, who'd been cooking lunch in the feeding area next door. Billie and Eagle-sensei arrived at the same time from the training room on the other side of the bunker. Billie was rapidly demorphing and came through the circular doorway first and was followed immediately after by their teacher.

" _Details._ " Eagle-sensei commanded in her sharp clicking voice that cut through the questions of her teammates. It was the only actual actual sound in the room aside from what came from the speakers, it silenced the not-voices of her teammates who quickly remembered to behave professionally.

[The subject K9-3 is going on a C-ranked mission to the Land of Waves.] Eoptis saluted her team leader and tried her best to keep the giddiness out of her thoughtspeech. [The object of this mission is to escort the bridge builder, Tazuna, back to his home while keeping him safe from threats on the road.]

 _"It would take several days for them to travel between the two countries on foot with a civilian."_ Eagle noted. Their teacher nodded her leather covered head as she thought about the information provided. Rubber lids half covered Eagle's glass eyes as she continued, " _War Prince Ssipik reported that that area was unstable and dangerous..."_ The robot groaned in annoyance.

[Let me guess,] Boar thoughtspoke and crossed his strong arms in front of his plush chest. [This bridge builder gets some ninja to escort him home and once they get there they see all the mess that's gone down. Since the Leafies tend to be soft and like to 'do the right thing' they'll probably stick around and try to help out the poor Wave folk.]

[Good.] Billy replied curtly and leaned back on her thick tail. [The longer K9-3 is away from the village the more time the mistress has to work on him. If things get bad enough there's a war prince right there to step in.]

 _"That is true."_ Eagle-sensei nodded. Using her segmented tail the robot motioned for Eoptis to put the monitors on record. An order that the student quickly carried out whilst keeping an eye turned towards the team.

Their teacher headed for the rounded door and gestured for her pupils to follow. The sounds of hooves and talons and boots filled the bunker as the team marched solemnly to the common room. They all knew that this day would come eventually but that still didn't prepare them for what would come next. Metal talons lifted up a plastic guard box under the large television and then pressed the big important red button it guarded from accidental activation. The screen lit up black as the multispecies team sat in a semicircle around it.

After a few seconds a familiar face appeared on the television. Gray eyes stared stared down at them from the large screen, there was a camera and a microphone near the top of tv that she could observe them with. The surgical mask covering her mouth and chin hid her expressions. For Billy, Eagle, and Eoptis it had been over a decade since they'd last seen their mistress' real face. For Boar it had been about two years since. They told her the details of the subject's mission and how soon he'd be leaving the safety of the walls of the Leaf village. Once finished they waited with baited breath to hear the words of their glorious leader.

"Hello my children," She started. Her grey eyes curved upward into a smile. "I understand that this had been a long and strenuous mission. You even lost a valued teammate along the way. I am thankful for your service and loyalty, thus you shall be rewarded before your next assignment. I can arrange a couple weeks vacation to the land of the Moon…"

Excited clapping from Eoptis' thin little hands interrupted the mistress. She only raised a fuzzy red brow at her young creation's joy before continuing on. "In addition, you all have earned a good smile."

Eyes widened and the shinobi leaned towards the monitor in anticipation. The paper mask inched down to reveal a warm radiant grin. Seeing it filled their minds with a giddy happiness that clouded their thoughts. When the mistress commanded them to sleep they dropped almost instantly.


	2. Chapter 2: Alteration

_What a pretty smile._

He didn't care that his head felt like cotton candy. The smile was everything, the woman was all that mattered. She could give him all that he ever wanted: friends, family, love, understanding… The only thing he needed to do was say yes.

He wanted to say yes.

But the words wouldn't come. He couldn't movie his tongue or jaw or anything else. Tears blurred the lovely vision before him and his thoughts started to clear. He started wondering, who is this? Why did he want to serve her? What was she doing to him?

Questions and consciousness faded into a soothing darkness.

* * *

[Please awaken little brother. You are needed.]

He heard and didn't hear the message but the sense of urgency and danger roused him to his senses. Naruto climbed to his feet awkwardly, his body stiff and tingling with static. Something hurt around his navel or in it? His fingers explored the doughy flesh of his belly tenderly but found no wound that would have caused the pain. The boy's eyes traveled from his stomach to the soft grass and decaying leaves around his feet. Naruto's face scrunched in confusion about being in the forest when he was fairly certain he'd been half carried back to the bridge builder's house by Sasuke. Confusion as to why he was wearing his ninja gear and orange jumpsuit when he remembered pulling on his sleeping cap and snuggling under the blankets before he fell asleep pushed the odd message out of his thoughts.

[Go! You are needed!] The not-voice commanded firmly. The words carried with them images of old man Tazuna's house, of Tsunami and Inari, and an intense feeling of dread. Naruto snapped to attention, Inari and his mom were in danger and he needed to help.

How fast could he get there from here? Wherever here was… the boy looked around to get his bearings. The clearing he stood in held a makeshift shrine to with carved wooden effigies of a long tailed deer and a pair of spiky dragons and the grass was pockmarked with hoofprints. Surrounding the clearing where trees were covered in crisscrossing cuts running up the trunks. A little tension left Naruto's shoulders, this was the spot where he and Sasuke had been tree climbing yesterday. Ok, this was good. He knew how to get back to the house from here.

Off Naruto sprinted through the coastal forest switching between running on both his legs and running on all fours. Sandy soil and moss fragments worked their way under his nails and his heart pounded in his chest. Long gashes on the trees at around the chest height of a grown up did not escape Naruto's notice, nor the fact that they formed a trail in the direction he was going. Suddenly he stopped, not because he was tired, it would take a whole lot more activity to wear on his kind of stamina. He stopped due to the scent of animal blood near by, close enough that it didn't divert him too far from the trail. The boy knew that it was from an animal because human blood made him drool, he didn't kno… well, there was probably a reason why but he prefered not to think about cravings were easy enough to suppress.

The scent came from a dead boar.

The long slashes carved into its body matched those on the trunks on the trail. The boar's body was still warm so the people who'd senselessly killed it probably weren't too far away yet. Naruto channeled chakra to his limbs to boost his speed as he ran.

The young ninja came around the back of the house and climbed onto the roof. He could hear a commotion going on inside of the building and needed to think up a plan to get the civilians out of danger. Carefully Naruto scoped out the situation. He learned that there were only two enemies, non-ninja mercenaries with cool swords and enough bloodlust that he could easily feel it. That kind of blood thirst paled in comparison to what Zabuza used on his team, but it had a similar enough effect on a homemaker and her six year old kid.

...or well it would have if Tsunami wasn't ready to rumble. Hot damn, are all moms that cool?

With the bad guys busy trussing up their captive, Naruto created two clones and sent them further along the pier for an ambush. He, himself with another clone waited hidden on the top of the roof for the right moment to present himself as an obvious distraction. A distraction presented itself in the form of little Inari gathering the courage to try and save his mom. Noble goal but Naruto decided to make a move before the kid got himself turned into sashimi. The clone teleported in silently behind the charging samurai mercenaries while the real Naruto flipped through the hand seals for a substitution. In a flash of speed the young ninja snatched up Inari and left an Inari-sized log behind in his wake.

"Nice work Inari! You gave me the perfect opening to rescue your mom!" The younger boy was surprised and delighted to be safe and alive. Naruto smiled proudly at Inari, changing one's self was hard work and the kid managed to do it. Turning his attention back to the samurai Naruto lobbed a pair shuriken at the pair who easily deflected them with their soards. It wasn't much an issue since his clones came up behind the bad guys and gave them a sound boot to the head. The grown men crumpled to the planks of the pier as soon as his clones' heels violently connected with their skulls. Once the enemy was down, the clones ran back to Tazuna's house to get some rope to restrain them on the chance that trauma to the brain didn't kill or severely injure them.

"Sorry about calling you a coward, Inari. You've got plenty of guts and I'm proud of you for standing up for yourself and yer mom." Naruto rubbed the younger boy's head affectionately. In the present he laughed with Inari and assured him that it was ok to cry when he was happy. At the same time he wondered how he got back to the forest if he certainly did go back to the house after training. Naruto decided to ask about it later since there was probably shit going down at the bridge too. His clones dispersed and the young ninja told Inari that he had other places to be.

Naruto sprinted down the dock towards the village. While he'd only been through the seaside village twice before while escorting Tsunami for errands in between training sessions, he was surprised by how it had transformed into temporary ghost town. The homeless and beggars had vanished into thin air, windows had their shutters drawn, and no lights were visible under presumably locked doors. There wasn't even a single stick of incense burning at the fancier shrine to the weird local kami in the center of the village.

As Naruto neared the bridge he spotted two completely unnatural looking clouds of fog at the end. A looser one covered the top of the bridge where construction work was still being done. The other cloud was much denser, circling around the support columns of the structure and hovering right over the surface of the water. Given the amount of grandstanding and posturing in their last battle, and the likelihood that Zabuza knew that they were on to his fake hunter-nin partner, the mist ninjas were probably in the first mist… though that left the second one kinda unexplained. Deciding to sate his curiosity and check for additional threats, the young ninja sneaked under the bridge hopping from column to column until he was staring down into the cloud with a kunai in hand just case. Blue eyes strained to peer through the fog.

[There are no enemies down here.] The fine hairs on the nape of Naruto's neck bristled at the freaky feeling of someone speaking in his head again. It wasn't the same not-voice that woke him up that morning, that one had felt young and vaguely feminine underneath it's urgency. This one felt… old and authoritative, like someone who commanded armies and expected to be listened to. Naruto's shoulders tensed as a bizarre shape appeared in the mist. It kind of looked like a deer floating on air. A deer with a weirdly thick neck and a tail at least twice as long as it was. [You should probably go help your comrades, child.]

Well huh.

Naruto had no idea how to react to meeting a god. Or a thing that could communicate telepathically, fly, and worshiped like a god. So, the young ninja sagely decided to take the thing's word that it was not an enemy and decided to go help his team. Naruto climbed up the concrete pillar and scoped out the situation. Sakura was guarding the old bridge builder, who was thankfully still alive, while Kakashi-sensei and Zabuza held a verbal pissing contest, and Sasuke was trapped in a dome of unconnected sheets of ice and getting his shit wrecked. Soon enough Sakura provided an opening for him to strike the enemy and make a grand entrance.

"All right! The hero of the story is here to save the day! Believe it!"


End file.
